


in landscape

by orphan_account



Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: Canon Compliant, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2018-03-04 15:33:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3073109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[ 250th night ] When he was very small, once, Hakuryuu’s mother took him and Hakuei out to watch the lunar eclipse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in landscape

**Author's Note:**

> title/quote taken from poem of the same name by buddy wakefield.

_There is a book_   
_living inside your chest_   
_with dilated instructions_   
_on how to make a safe landing._   
_It was written_   
_for crash landers._

 

\--------------------

 

When he was very small, once, Hakuryuu’s mother took him and Hakuei out to watch the lunar eclipse.

It was way past the respectable bed time for a prince, especially one four years old, but Gyokuen shook him awake gently, her hands stilling against the soft skin of his cheek, the brush of her long eyelashes on his forehead making him giggle and leap out of bed. The three of them made their way to a secluded courtyard, with Hakuryuu wrapped up in so many quilts like a little doll, starry with excitement, practically leaping out of his skin. They watched the slow slide of red across the face of the moon, Hakuryuu shivering in the cold, Hakuei speechless with awe, Gyokuen telling them stories about how there was another world out there, somewhere, where the moon shone seven times as big and beautiful.

He’s remembering this now because the light in his room glows the exact same color as the swallowed moon, ripe with false promise. It’s also because he would rather think about anything in the world other than the fact that there were times, blind times, where he genuinely had fun with his family — as a family.

His stomach hurts. The rest of him also hurts, not as bad as Phenex’s curse, but the fact that it exists still makes him clench his jaw a little too hard, trying too hard to relax. Healing is a slow process apparently, especially healing from Gyokuen’s attacks, but he’s getting there, despite the way everything in his body burns, like the fire all over again, except slower this time.

He’s starting to forget what it’s like to have a sense of family at all — no. Actually, he’s forgotten it a long time ago; it was ripped away, just like the rest of his world, by that witch. And only now is the empty feeling catching up to him.

He must be really out of it, because after a while Judal speaks to him and Hakuryuu didn’t even notice when he came into the room.

“What is it,” he asks, weary, tired, so fucking tired.

“What, I can’t come by and see how you’re doing? All healed up?” Judal’s voice is light, questioning.

“No. To both.”

“But I’m here,” Judal whines, and then crosses the room, walking on air — of course he is, the show-off. “It’s my duty to take care of you, you know? Make sure you’re all fit for taking the rest of the world, and all that. Unless, you know, you don’t want to.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Judal pokes his face. It makes him flinch away, but the sting of a sharp nail is still there, and all of a sudden he realizes that he hasn’t known any sort of physical contact beyond the painful kind for so long. He leans back further into the shadow, like he’ll emerge on the other side good as new again.

“What do you want to do, then?”

“I don’t know.”

Judal’s silent for a while. For all he says they’re similar, there’s a lot of difference between them — an ocean of difference, really, innumerable currents, waves and waves and storms of difference. Judal’s never been old enough to really grasp the way something can be lost so completely, so suddenly. That, at least, is something Hakuryuu will always have on him.

“Hey, Hakuryuu,” Judal says, his voice going all slow, soft in a way that it never is. When Hakuryuu lifts his eyes up to look at him Judal gives a sort of helpless smiles and slides his palm along the sharpest part of his jaw. The pad of his thumb just barely brushes against the edge of his scar.

“Wh-what are you doing,” Hakuryuu stammers, flinching away again, but this time not because Judal’s touching him. Vaguely he realizes that his fingers are shaking from how hard he’s gripping at his sheets.

“What do you think I’m doing,” Judal says, and settles his weight onto the bed, leans in to nudge Hakuryuu’s nose with his own. His breath is just the tiniest bit wet.

Hakuryuu doesn’t know how to say anything other than “I don’t know,” so that’s what he does.

Judal breathes out a laugh. Hakuryuu’s holding his gaze for an awfully long time, watching the way Judal’s eyes ripple in the unsteady light.

“Let me know when you figure it out, then,” he whispers, and then tilts his head, kisses him so softly that Hakuryuu slumps forwards after, tipping his head into the warmth of Judal’s shoulder. He mouths blindly at the cloth there, making Judal laugh, but it’s all he can do; his body is so hungry for a gentle touch that he feels feverish.

Judal leans forward, pushing at his chest so that he falls back into his pillow. When his vision clears up again he sees Judal looking down at him. He’s not smiling.

“Are we going to —” Hakuryuu makes a vague gesture at the rest of the bed.

“If you want.”

It is, perhaps, the way Judal _looks_ at him that makes him so horribly, helplessly honest. Hakuryuu bites his lip and shrugs a little and tugs Judal down, revels in the collide of their bodies together but doesn’t move beyond that. “I don’t know,” he says, the most familiar thing that’s passed his lips in the past few days.

Judal’s mouth opens, closes. Hakuryuu looks at him for a long moment.

Then he finally lets out a quiet breath. “Again.”

He doesn’t specify, but he doesn’t have to; Judal nods, and again their lips meet. Hakuryuu feels something in the pit of his stomach stirring. He can’t even help kissing back — Judal lets him control everything, matching him kiss for kiss, breath for breath, infinitely patient, doesn’t even try coaxing him into doing anything else. It makes Hakuryuu hungry, makes his hands settle on the exposed parts of Judal’s back, smoothing his fingers over each knob of his spine.

More, he decides, he wants more — he stops, and Judal ceases instantly as well, gazing at him like he’s holding the sun between his teeth. Like he should only be spoken to in prayers.

“I want to see you,” Hakuryuu tells him, speaks past the crack in his voice. Judal nods again and sits up, rests back on Hakuryuu’s knees in order to pull his clothes up over his head, baring himself without a second thought. His fingers come to hook questioningly over the collar of Hakuryuu’s robes, and then starts tugging them open when Hakuryuu doesn’t protest.

It takes a few moments, but they end up completely unclothed, sitting face to face on Hakuryuu’s bed. Hakuryuu can’t stop shaking, can’t stop staring at the graceful curve of Judal’s arms, the glint of a scar on his stomach from when they were in Belial’s dungeon, the line low across his hips where his skin suddenly lightens. Judal’s smile is faint, almost uncertain, like he isn’t used to being exposed, even to Hakuryuu. He just holds out his hand, a wordless offer, and Hakuryuu takes it and holds his palm against his cheek.

All he can hear is the uneven tightness in his breathing. Judal watches him carefully. He’s thankful for the low light, the flicker of glow on his face that makes his scars almost disappear, until Judal moves his hand and traces around the scar on his face, moves on to the ones covering the rest of his body. He has bruises still from when Gyokuen knocked him into the floor, from when her rukh exploded and nearly killed him, has fresh cuts that still bleed if he moves the wrong way, but nothing hurts apart from the hollowness in his chest when Judal touches him with careful fingers.

The thing is that it’s still _hollow_ , and Hakuryuu doesn’t know if it’ll ever be _not hollow_ , but then Judal feels carefully around the space like he knows it’s there, pushes him gently back down again, and all the warning Hakuryuu gets is a hot exhale against the underside of his jaw before Judal kisses him there. Hakuryuu shivers, lets a weak, weak sound fall from his mouth.

One of his hands, his own hand, moves to trail through Judal’s hair, grasping at the messy strands. Judal pauses, blinks, and unravels his braid with magic, lets his hair tumble dark and heavy around them both. It really is long, falls almost past his feet unbraided, softens the sharpest points of his face and makes Hakuryuu wonder if this is all actually happening, if Judal even knows what he’s doing, laying himself completely bare, bracelets and jewels strewn across the bed, every trace of magic gone from his skin — if any of this is wise, even, while the sky is dark and ravaged outside no matter the time of day.

Judal works his way down his neck, not biting, not even sucking hard to leave marks, just kissing lightly enough that Hakuryuu feels lightheaded, his eyes sliding shut when he isn’t paying attention.

And then Judal lets out a small noise of discontent.

“What,” Hakuryuu croaks, wincing at how heavy his voice sounds.

“You’re hurt here,” Judal replies, “you didn’t notice?”

Hakuryuu gapes at him. “No?”

Judal’s index finger traces the wound in question, right in the dip above the line of his collarbone. “This could have been serious,” he murmurs, “it could have broken skin. It could have hit you right in the throat. Does it hurt?”

“No,” Hakuryuu half-lies.

Judal eyes him. “You don’t need to pretend here.”

“It doesn’t hurt enough to be bad,” Hakuryuu amends, trying for a smile, feeling it fall short. Judal makes an impatient noise and slides up to kiss him on the mouth, a little more insistent this time.

There’s something about Hakuryuu right now that makes Judal want to just put him to sleep — the weird, defiant way in which he just doesn’t care about himself, like there’s nothing for him to do but fade out after taking out that witch. That’s wrong, of course; there’s so much _more_ for him to do, so much more when it comes to cursing his fate. Hakuryuu will realize that eventually. For now, though —

It can’t possibly be healthy, having all that load of emptiness swimming around in his brain.

Hakuryuu whines against his mouth, and Judal takes the opportunity to lick into it, feeling a startled gasp as Hakuryuu’s hips buck up to knock into his own.

“Easy,” he mutters, because he can’t help it, he can’t help _anything_ when he’s with Hakuryuu, this stupid whiny brat that no one believed in, who for some godforsaken reason knows how to fight back better than any of his siblings; he can’t help feeling like each particle in his skin is vibrating whenever Hakuryuu is around. And now Hakuryuu is _here_ , Hakuryuu kisses with his eyes closed, his lips too red, his entire body trembling because of _Judal_ , and it’s all Judal can do to not just lose himself.

If anything, he’s here because he wants Hakuryuu to heal _faster_.

“Do that again,” Hakuryuu says shakily, and Judal does, and Hakuryuu actually moans into the kiss, so unlike himself that Judal has to consider if they are trying to find themselves more than anything else.

He slips one hand between Hakuryuu’s legs, gives one tentative stroke, and gets rewarded when Hakuryuu thrashes upwards, a sharp gasp slicing into his throat.

He knows that this can’t possibly be Hakuryuu’s first time — you don’t really survive as a member of the royal family for this long without an inevitable awkward night with one of the slaves, a horrible lecture about duty and preserving family lineage and all that fumbling about with too many layers of clothes — but Hakuryuu’s reactions are so _much_ , so real and responsive and expressive. Judal tries another wrist movement, curves his finger just _so_.

“Judal —” Hakuryuu chokes out, every single syllable of his name just dashed to pieces against his teeth, coming out splintered, and suddenly Judal forgets that Hakuryuu’s injured all over his body, forgets what little sense of rank and authority he ever had, forgets that his primary motive for all of this was to take Hakuryuu’s mind off other things. Instead he bites back a groan, curls over Hakuryuu’s body so that he can press his forehead against the butterfly beat of Hakuryuu’s heart and let the rhythm there guide his movements. Hakuryuu’s lost then, writhing up with his hands on Judal’s upper arms, each gasp like it’s the last breath he’ll ever take.

Judal’s chest tightens when he picks his head back up to look at his king, picking out the flush on Hakuryuu’s face even though the room is so dim he can barely see. Still, he can make out the curve of Hakuryuu’s throat, the bob there when he swallows, his neck exposed while his head is thrown back.

“I need to,” Hakuryuu’s gasping, “I need to,” and he keeps saying it, and Judal’s trying to figure out what Hakuryuu needs to do when it hits him that he’s actually saying _I need you, I need you_.

“Hakuryuu —”

“Please,” says Hakuryuu. _Please_ , Judal thinks blindly, because underneath every other fucked up thing that’s happened to him, Hakuryuu’s still the kindest person he knows.

He foregoes the stroking in order to lean up again, lines up his hips with Hakuryuu’s and rolls them up, cradles Hakuryuu’s face in his palm. Neither of them care very much that he’s wiped the slickness on his hand across his cheek, into his hair; Hakuryuu leans into the touch so hard that Judal feels like he’s going to burst out of his skin, wonders just how touch starved he is. There’s a hot, hard pulsing between his legs now as he watches Hakuryuu’s eyes struggle to stay open.

“Judal,” Hakuryuu says again, more of a flicker than a word.

“Yeah.”

“Judal,” another time. The corners of Hakuryuu’s mouth are lifting.

“I’m here,” Judal tells him, _I’ll always be here, even if the world’s end is over and I’m useless to you_.

“I’m close,” Hakuryuu whispers, his eyes flying open, mismatched and wide and hazy and so fucking perfect that Judal lurches forwards, helplessly taken, and lets go. His lips curve around words that he’s too afraid to say out loud. Hakuryuu’s mouth opens and he looks down where his stomach shimmers, wet, and Judal’s still shaking, too warm and overwhelmed, when Hakuryuu’s arms come up to grab around his neck tightly, burying his face into Judal’s shoulder as he comes.

Judal’s almost certain that he’s _dying_ , holding onto Hakuryuu just as tightly, realizing that Hakuryuu’s shoulders aren’t as broad as he thought they were without all those robes, that his skin is softer than it looks. All he can see is the dark fall of Hakuryuu’s hair tipping into his pillow, all he feels is the shuddering breaths into his bare skin.

He schools his face back into calm when Hakuryuu lets his head drop backwards, leaving a rush of cold emptiness where there shouldn’t be.

“Tired,” Hakuryuu groans, childish, his chest heaving, a mess smeared across both their stomachs. He lets Judal drag some piece of clothing over it before tossing it all to the floor. Now they’re starting to shiver again, this time from cold, and it dawns upon Judal that this is probably all they’ll have, whether or not they survive their next fight. That the rest of the world will come rushing back into his daydream, stretching it to bursting.

“Better rest up, then,” he says instead of the two hundred other things hanging from his mouth. Hakuryuu just nods numbly and shuts his eyes, already retreating back into the empty haze Judal found him in.

He doesn’t wake up until Judal’s slipping out of the room again, the long trail of jewels on his curtained doors clinking like warnings.

“You have to heal, okay?” Judal says from the doorway. The way his voice sounds like it’s bleeding dry makes Hakuryuu’s entire body go numb. He’s not supposed to have heard, he realizes. He’s not supposed to hear. Judal doesn’t say anything after that for a long time, makes him wonder what he’s doing.

If Judal knows he’s awake, maybe he should —

“What am I gonna do without a king?”

 

**end**.

 

 


End file.
